


biting the bullet (you're the metal between my teeth)

by saltzyqueer (tallglassofqueer)



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, F/F, a couple of badass fights, mostly just good friendships and a happy ending, some lame love confessions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-03-20 15:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18995791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tallglassofqueer/pseuds/saltzyqueer
Summary: Penelope Park never really planned for her life to turn out like this.But if it involved dying at the hands of Josie Saltzman, it might be worth it.orthe one where Salvatore Boarding trains young & gifted assassins





	1. love’s such a delicate thing that we do (with nothing left to prove)

Spitting out the dirt from her mouth, she rakes her tongue across her teeth, clearing it of the grit. The dust was finally settling around the car, ripples of sand leading out from the impact point like dropping a rock in a puddle. Except she’s the puddle and Josie’s the rock, always pulling Penelope back into her orbit,  just to crash into her again.

 

"Jesus fuck." Her hand slaps against her forehead, as if she can do something to stop the pounding inside her skull. Clambering out her totaled car, she falls to her knees to catch her breath, A car door closes in the distance, she can't tell how close due to the screeching metal still echoing in her ears.

 

There are footsteps and she wonders what she’ll look like, sound like, it’s been so long. A familiar shadow looms over her and there’s the glimmer of hope that they’ll both walk away from this. Maybe fall in love again in a nearby cafe, away from this demented and twisted life. Maybe there’s another life, another universe somewhere else where it doesn’t hurt as much. Where it’s easier to breathe and laugh, but she’s still in the universe where Josie intentionally slams her car into Pen's, sending her spinning off the deserted road.

 

The universe where she feels her jaw pop as Josie’s foot connects.

 

Fuck, there'll be one hell of a bruise there tomorrow. If she even lasts that long. She’s on her back now, looking up at Josie and the sun’s shining too brightly behind her. She looks good, Pen smiles at her.

 

" _ Pen _ ." Her old nickname rings through her head and she spits blood. Looks like the nickname stuck after all these years. 

 

There was the  _ Pen  _ when they first kissed, Josie cautious and nervous as ever and Penelope trying not to move too quickly to spook her.

 

All the different tones,  _ Pen _ in the mornings with the sun peeking through the curtains,  _ Pen _ at the grocery store,  _ Pen _ when she’s making her laugh so hard she can’t catch her breath.

 

The  _ Pen  _ she says when she leans in for a short kiss, and it stretches out across the spanse of time.

 

And this  _ Pen _ . The last one, if she’s lucky. Penelope’s just glad that she got to hear it one more time before she dies.

 

She’s debating on whether she should fight back or say something. So she lamely whispers back a nickname of her own. “ _ Jojo _ .” 

 

“Surprised?”

 

“No.” Penelope's face hurts when she tries to talk, but she coolly comments. “After all these years, you still hate me." Josie’s face softens momentarily and she takes advantage of the shock to swing her leg bringing the taller girl down to her knees. She lands with a grunt and Penelope's fist swiftly connects with her gut, her knee moving to meet Josie’s face as she bends over.

 

"I was surprised when I got the assignment," Josie mutters as she breathes through the pain from the blow, trying to stem the bleeding from her nose. “I didn’t think you’d be alive after seventeen or so hits on you. Impressive.”

 

She grabs Josie, still bent over and yanks her up against the car, pressing her elbow to her throat, and grins. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”

 

Josie’s looking at her intently, eyeing the arm pinning her to the car. "Doesn't this betray the entire purpose of why we broke up?" There's a sad smile on her face.

 

So Penelope cracks a smile to match. "We broke up so this would happen later rather than sooner.

 

“Why prolong the inevitable?" The wit sparkles in her brown eyes and Penelope realizes how much she’s missed her. The banter. The closeness. This. So she does the last, first thing she can think to do. If she’s dying today, then there’s nothing to lose and nothing to prove.

 

She closes the distance between their faces, leaning in for a last kiss.

 

And Josie does the first last thing she could think of, she leans back with all of her might and slams her forehead into Penelope’s unsuspecting face.

 

A bloody nose to match hers. Josie has the upper hand, but it makes her wonder if she ever really did. Every action has an equal opposite reaction.

"You were always my equal. On the field and in bed." There’s a wink and Josie knows Penelope’s trying to cover up the hurt, whether it’s from the rejection or the physical blows, she isn’t sure. The only thing that she’s sure of is the gun in her holster with a bullet that has Penelope Park’s name on it.

Bullets. just in case Penelope tries to pull any fast ones on her.

 

For someone who had to shoot her own mother in the head, Josie was always too nice, too sweet, too excited about everything. Too good for Penelope. She talked about all of these plans where they could do anything they wanted to, take their agencies down, change their identities, and run away together. Penelope couldn’t let that happen, they had friends and families.

 

For Penelope Park, leaving Josie was the hardest thing she's ever had to do. After the whole Park family was assassinated, she had to go underground and that meant cutting ties with anyone who might care about her.

MG understood.

Hope said she’d keep an eye on the twins.

And Josie, well, Penelope couldn’t risk her trying to follow her, save her, or have any hope for when the assassins finally reach Penelope. She had to make Josie leave her, leave the relationship, and when Josie left, Lizzie went with her.

 

The irony of ending a relationship to avoid the death of the people you love, just for that person to come back to kill you. Penelope Park never really planned for her life to turn out like this. But if it involves dying at the hands of Josie Saltzman, it might be worth it.

 

Josie's hand is pushing against her chest, causing her back to dig in against the broken debris, and there's a tiny part of her that wishes, hopes that she would push just a little harder, end it all. Even though she's having trouble breathing with all the pressure, she's not sure if it's because of Josie or from everything that's happened so far.

 

Penelope really thought if you loved someone enough, you could do anything. Together you could defeat everything. And she's done.

 

Her adrenaline is running out, the impact of the last few years are finally taking its toll. Penelope doesn’t want to fight anymore, her muscles are exhausted and her heart is calling it quits. The only thing she can bring herself to do is smile at the girl above her, like it's the last thing she can do, The last thing she will do. Maybe they'll find each other again in a different world where not everything is so fucked up.

 

"I loved you." Penelope whispers. And she feels a twinge of regret but pushes it away. If this is a world that can only have one of them, she'll let Josie move on and have her own life without Penelope Park haunting every corner of her mind. She's ready to give up. It's been too long, running, sleeping alone, and wondering how Josie is doing. There’s a tiny part of her that aches and tries to reach out, a part that wants to scream that she still loves her and has never stopped. It’s that part that keeps silent when Josie’s hands grab the gun from her holster, loads it, and buries the nozzle in short black hair.

 

Penelope closes her eyes, but it doesn't all go black like she expected. Maybe death is different than everyone talks about. There isn’t a bang, only a quiet “I still love you.” Penelope can hear the creak of the trigger, the chamber firing up, and she acts in seconds.

 

There’s a melted hole right next to her head, the destroyed car sporting another smoking wound. Her eyes are just as wide as Josie’s brown ones. Searching for meaning, a reason, anything.

 

"What?" Penelope asks again, nearly begging for her to say it again.

 

Josie blinks at her. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The smell of burning metal fills her nose. Pen’s hand still tight around her arm, keeping the gun in midair. It's shaking now and Josie's trembling.

 

"You still love me?"

 

In this universe, there’s a sliver of a chance that they both might still love each other and live to say it again.


	2. and I am done with my graceless heart (so i'll cut it out and hit restart)

“ _Dad!”_ She whines as Alaric hovers over her, “Just let me do this!” He steps back from the blonde twin, wearing a birthday tiara next to the taller twin, tiara-less.

 

“Lizzie, if you weren’t so focused on your birthday party, you’d have done the reading on the proper position. Check Josie out.”

 

On the other end of the gun rage, Josie stands, barely 12 years old, and lands every single one of her shots dead center. Lizzie winces and feels a bit of remorse for the wooden cut out that her sister trains her sights on. She wonders what it’ll be like if Josie ever dates anyone; will she treat them carefully like a sister or destroy them like a target?

 

“If you warmed up the teeniest, tiniest, little bit to Hope, you could be as good as Jo.” Alaric lowers himself and kneels, groaning and being considerate of his injury, he pokes the numb area around his kidney. “I don’t think I’d have this if I didn’t have my ego. Sometimes, being brave is what hurts us and being vulnerable is what saves us.” He’s at eye level with his youngest. “I need you to be strong for me. For Josie. Salvatore Academy won’t be around forever.” He pauses. “I won’t be around forever.” After kissing her lightly on the forehead, he watches her tense up, readjust her aim, and land five bullets dead center in the wooden cut out in front of her.

 

**//**

 

"So you kissed and made up?" Hope plops down and nudges her friend, someone she hasn’t seen for the last four years.

 

"We didn’t kiss." Penelope hisses at her friend.

 

" _Yet._ Just like the ol' days. She left you a good bruise." Hope gingerly brushes some dirt off her face and feels her lean into her touch, ignoring the dull complaint from the bruise.

 

There’s a lull in the conversation and they both glance at the house. It’s just MG and Josie inside, laughing and making lunch. Josie leans back into view of the window and Penelope feels her heart clench.

 

"She told me she still loves me." Penelope wants to cry when she says those words, it twists her up inside and steals all of the air from her lungs. She tries to breathe normally, but it's almost like all those years of bottled up feelings are threatening to spill. She keeps the jar of emotions clamped shut.

 

"Do you?" Hope's still touching her face, looking in her eyes with concern written on her forehead. It helps her untwist a little.

 

"What?"

 

"How do you feel?” She looks over through the kitchen windows, wondering when Lizzie will come home. Josie's still smiling and chatting away.

 

"I feel tired, bruised, like I’ve been dragged to hell and back.” Hope doesn’t say anything and that’s okay, she doesn’t expect Hope to understand. She didn't expect a lot of things to happen today. She didn't expect her car to be left in a mess in the middle of nowhere. She didn't expect a past flame to show up, light her world up and then burn everything down again. There's a new fire inside of her after coming so close to dying. She's not sure if she expected to die after today. If anything, she’d rather let Josie kill her than to continue living without her.

 

But most of all, she didn't expect Hope to bring her hand back and slap her, adding insult to injury and another ache to her list of injuries.

 

"What the f-"

 

"That's for being willing to die." Penelope rubs the sting away from her cheek, if she gets a headache later she's blaming it on Hope. "Love isn't weakness. And you, Park, out of everyone else? Always preaching about how love makes you stronger."

 

"It's been a while since you've heard those words from me." Seven years to be exact, ever since she and Josie went their own ways.

 

"Doesn't mean you stopped believing it."

 

"I thought it would help her, that it’s what she wanted."

 

"When has Josie ever done what she really wanted to do over what other people wanted?" She had nothing to say back and she's grateful when MG pops his head out of the window to wave them inside for lunch.

 

//

 

He gives Penelope the guest room with the intention of sleeping on the couch, but somehow Penelope finds herself stretched out on the couch while Josie and MG have muffled clipped conversations in the room adjacent.

 

She falls asleep watching the yellow sliver of light shining from under Josie's door. When she wakes up again, everything is dark. She sighs, wishing that Josie would've come and spoken with her before going to bed.

 

She can see the moon through the windows across from her, maybe she shouldn’t be here stuck in the “will she, won’t she.” Drifting off again, the creak of weight on the wooden floors makes her sit up with the hopes that it’s Josie. They haven’t had a chance to really talk after the fight today. She steps towards the kitchen and flicks on the light.

 

She gets up to only come face to face with someone who isn’t her love, but rather, her lover’s sister.

 

Lizzie flinches and blinks at her. "Park? You're alive?"

 

"Yeah, should I not be?" She chuckles under her breath, trying not to wake anyone in the house. "I understand with this kind of profession it's a bit surprising sometimes." With a wink she pauses. "I thought you were on-"

 

"I came as soon as I heard about Josie. I'm sorry about that, I understand how hard it must be for you." Lizzie shows remorse on her face, but it doesn't sit right. Something about her words doesn’t sit right either.

 

"Can I get you a drink? You must've had a long night, I was about to make a pot of coffee." Her eyes flash to the timer on the oven, 6:45am. Thank god, her story's coherent.

 

"Should we make some for the others?"

 

"It's just me in the house right now.” A lie. “MG isn't doing well after the news,” Penelope’s playing along and hoping that Lizzie doesn’t see through her transparent, vulnerable state. “So he and Hope went out on the lake this morning." She grabs two mugs and waves them in the air. "I don't even know what they do out there. Is this what you retired people do?"

 

They both chuckle and Lizzie hands her the mugs before taking a seat. “That’s the dream, but I’m still doing some moonlighting.”

 

Penelope’s hand grips the handle of the pot and her muscles tense. "Cream or sugar?" The tension’s filling the room and her back is to Lizzie and everything is on edge, screaming at her to turn around to face the viper ready to strike.

 

"I actually quit coffee a while back." Lizzie says, and Penelope can hear the chair scraping against the ground as she stands.

 

It all happens in a breath. The viper strikes. There are three bullets fired.

 

Penelope twists and throws the coffee pot at her, the glass shatters in midair from the bullet.

Another bullet flies, she ducks to avoid the flying glass. There's two holes in the fresh blue cupboards behind Penelope. She cringes and hopes that MG won't be too upset. She'll help him fix it and paint over it. Or at least Josie will.

 

Lizzie spins the chair around and kicks it, sending the pile of sticks barreling towards Penelope.

 

It catches her and pins her against the counter, but not before she throws a mug at the blonde and her defensive shift changes the angle of the gun. The third bullet grazes Penelope's arm, taking a sizable chunk of flesh with it and she fights the hiss that builds up in the back of her throat from the pain. She’s not sure if the chair saved her, all she knows is her arm still stings when she throws the sugar bowl, forcing Lizzie to turn her head and close her eyes. The second mug follows suit and crashes into her temple. She watches Lizzie crumple to the ground, the gun sliding out of her hand into Penelope’s.

 

"You flinched, asshole."

 

And everyone’s awake. Footsteps come rushing in and lights flood the house.

 

"Jesus, Penelope!" Hope’s running to the body on the ground to check her breathing and heart rate. MG surveys the damage.

 

"That's the second coffee pot your girlfriend’s broken this month, Mikaelson.”

 

“Penelope?” Everything falls on deaf ears when she feels Josie's hands on her arm, stemming the blood flow. "Are you okay?" She just looks up at Josie and looks away before choking out an apology about the stupid blue cupboards. And she collapses.

 

//

 

When she comes to, she's back on the couch and wondering if it was all a dream. The white gauze on her right arm tells her what she needed to know. Josie patched her up when she was out, and now she's nowhere in sight.

 

_Lizzie._

 

She sits up too quickly and groans when the nausea hits.

 

"Hey, lie down. Don't stretch yourself too far, you lost a lot of blood." MG’s pushing her back down and setting a trash can by the head of the couch. "If you feel sick, puke in there. Hell, puke on anyone, just not me. You know I'm a sympathetic thrower." It brings a half cracked grin to Penelope's face.

 

"Where is she?"

 

"Tied up in the basement. When she came to, she maybe-might’ve tried to kill you again."

 

She sighs and lets her body sink into the couch. "Josie?"

 

"She's down there yelling at her. Don't worry, it's soundproof. Mostly." And Pen laughs before the meds pull her back into deep sleep again.

 

She dreams of Josie

 

She wakes up to Josie's head on her chest. The younger girl's fast asleep and her body weighs down comfortably on Pen’s. She can tell that Josie's been crying, and it almost fucks her up.

She pretends not to notice.

 

The next time she wakes up, Josie's not there anymore, and she doesn't bring it up.

 

//

 

Hope finds a coffee pot from one of the cupboards and reminds MG to add a back up to their shopping list. A new pot or at least a coffee machine that Lizzie can’t pick up. They both glance over at Penelope’s sleeping form on the couch.

 

"Lizzie only wants to talk to you. She won’t tell us anything else, not even Josie."

 

"She told me some bits and pieces, but she’s just trying to protect Josie.”

 

“Do you think she’d talk to her?” MG nods towards the couch.

 

“It might help.”

 

"We’ll wait until she’s well enough."

 

"I'm well enough." Penelope takes this moment to prop herself up. She ignores their surprised looks and remarks. She pretends not to notice Josie's hand stretched out to help her and uses MG as a crutch. "Let's get some answers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from florence & the machine's shake it out
> 
> find me on twitter @saltzyqueer

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from Simple Song by The Shins
> 
> i literally posted this for @penelopeloml
> 
> i'm on twitter @saltzyqueer


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